Dictionaries › English

defeat

Pronunciation: /dɪˈfiːt/

The English word “defeat” has 8 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To overcome in battle or contest.
  2. To reduce, to nothing, the strength of.
  3. To nullify
  4. To prevent (something) from being achieved.

noun

  1. The act or instance of being defeated, of being overcome or vanquished; a loss.
  2. The act or instance of defeating, of overcoming, vanquishing.
  3. Frustration (by prevention of success), stymieing; (law) nullification.
  4. Destruction, ruin.

Etymology

From Middle English defeten, from Middle English defet (“disfigured”, past participle) and defet (“defect”, noun), see Etymology 2 below.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “defeat” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.